Name : Toni Lanotte-Day, President, Toni Tours, Inc.

Certified: PEARLS Partner

City/State/Prov: Levittown, NY

Travelers: Small group who travel with me on annual trips to exotic destinations around the world

Budget: Past trips cost $5000 to $8000 per person

Nights Requested: 7-night cruise + 1-night pre hotel and 2-nights post overwater bungalows

Final Booking Cost: $60,000 to date. Still adding group participants

Every year, I put together two small group trips to promote to a client base I have built over the last several years. My groups range in size from 10 to 40 people. Since 2002, I have taken them around the world to all 7 continents. The trips are always high-end and feature a semi-exotic, soft adventure, bucket list type destination. I poll my clients every year to see what destinations are on their mind and usually pull from that list. Surprisingly, French Polynesia had never come up as a destination. But after meeting with Liz Coleman, Director of Sales, I decided to block some space with Paul Gaugin Cruises aboard the m/s Paul Gauguin to see what type of response I got. I used one of the amazing Paul Gauguin Cruises videos and sent an email blast to my client list along with a description of the personal experiences I have had in Tahiti on past trips. I then scheduled a Zoom meeting to talk about Tahiti and answer any questions my clients had. In less than a week, I had 9 people sign up. I have been adding to the list since then and am hoping to have at least 20 people in my group. Many in the group are single, professional women who have gotten to know each other on my other trips. They were excited to have the opportunity to experience French Polynesia as a group of friends as opposed to it being a "couples" trip.